Billionaire Mitt Romney supporter Sheldon Adelson has threatened to sue a Democratic organization for libel for blog posts about allegations he personally authorized prostitution in one of his overseas casinos.
Atttorney Lewis J. Clayton has demanded that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee “immediately retract and apologize for defamatory statements falsely accusing Mr. Adelson of encouraging and profiting from prostitution.”
The prostitution allegations originated with Steven Jacobs, who was fired as chief executive of Las Vegas Sands Corp.’s Macau casinos and is suing. He alleged that he tried to clean up the casino when he came aboard in 2009 but was “met with concern as (company) senior executives informed me that the prior prostitution strategy had been personally approved by Adelson.”
Adelson strongly denied the allegations to Forbes. “Would I jeopardize being the 7th richest man in the US and the 14th or 15th richest person in the world to push prostitution?” Adelson said.
The threat of a libel suit stems from two blog posts from the DCCC, one on June 29 titled “BREAKING: HOUSE REPUBLICANS’ BIGGEST DONOR APPROVED ‘PROSTITUTION STRATEGY’ IN CHINA” and another on July 2 titled “HOUSE REPUBLICANS FUNDED BY CHINESE PROSTITUTION MONEY?”
Adelson’s lawyers wrote that the DCCC was “maliciously branding Mr. Adelson as a pimp who has given ‘Chinese prostitution money’ to your political opponents.”
“Mr. Adelson has no objection to honest political debate — indeed he welcomes it and fosters it — but he will not tolerate baseless attacks on him and his family,” the lawyer wrote, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal.
Adelson’s company is under federal investigation for alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
